Beer: Ratings & Reviews

Reviews by flyingpig:

330ml Bottle from Good Spirits Co, Glasgow (£2.20):Light amber & clear with a thin, white lacing that just about covers the surface in lieu of a head. Tiny bits of the lacing also stick to the sides.

Very sweet with some floral hops & citrus that's fruity with some orange along with tangy notes & light hops; it almost smells like a piece of candy cane in areas and is too sweet for my liking, almost seeming artificial.

Slightly hoppy initially, although I was expecting more, & just as sweet as the nose suggested, again seeming artificial and kind of like candy. There is a lot of resinous pine & citrus flavours and naturally the beer is bitter, with a tangy orange taste & some sweet malts.

Very sweet, overly so for the most part & quite tangy too with a strong floral feel from the pine. Light-medium & definitely thinner than I was expecting for the strength of the beer and carbonation was about medium as well.

I was fairly disappointed with this offering if I'm honest, it has been built up for me to try for so long now and to be honest it completely failed to deliver. It seemed quite artificial & far thinner than I expected. The original Joker IPA is miles better & I'll stick to that in future.

More User Reviews:

A 330ml bottle with a BB of Sept 2015. Picked up a little while back from Trembling Madness in York. Let's see how devilishly hoppy it really is.....

A: Poured into a Duvel tulip. A bright amber hue with medium carbonation. Yields a large head of creamy white foam that lasts for a few minutes before reducing to a patchy surface layer.

S: Aroma of fruity hops with hints of white grape, grass/hay, gooseberries, peel, citrus, caramel malt and mild earthy yeast. A twinge of alcohol in the background along with a whisper of diacetyl.

T: Tastes of aromatic hops with an intense bitter finish. Notes of pine, weed, peel, citrus, grass/hay, faint white grape, caramel malt, earthy yeast, stewed hops and a hint of booze. A touch of diacetyl lurks in the background. Well-attenuated, followed by a powerful hop-driven bitterness upon swallowing.

M: Mouthfeel is smooth and tingly, with pleasant carbonation and good body. Somewhat astringent, accompanied by an aftertaste of bitter aromatic hops, pine, caramel malt and stewed hops.

O: Pretty good, with a serious bitterness that gets your attention. Looks nice, while the aroma is surprisingly subdued for a double IPA. Plenty of fruity notes in evidence, and the flavour backs this up with a mighty hop-laden bitterness. Good body. Could benefit slightly from bottle conditioning, but this is a solid DIPA that goes down a treat. Worth sampling if you come across it.

After stating on Twitter earlier this year that "It's a double Joker IPA brew day…" (meaning two batches of Joker on brew that day) i received a influx of tweets saying things along the lines of "Double Joker sounds great, where can i get it". After all the interest in a double version of Joker, curiosity got the better of me and i asked one of our brewers (Jamie) to make a small test batch to see how it would turn out.

The first batch, comprised of 20 x 33cl bottles, which as luck would have had it, were ready just in time for me to take to the European Beer Bloggers Conference in Leeds. So i mocked up a label, and headed off to conference. The following day i set up my table for registration drinks and waited on the thirsty bloggers arrival.

Post registration i logged back into Twitter to see a rack of @Williamsbrewery mentions and #EBBC12 tagged praise for the brews i brought with me, especially the Double Joker IPA.

Upon my return to the brewery it was decided to make another small batch of Double Joker IPA. The second batch comprised of 8 x 30L kegs and a small amount of 33cl bottles. These kegs went out to Fuller Thomson Bars, Bow Bar, Beer Hive & James Clay.

So today, after further positive feedback on the brew we have taken it to the next step. On brew as i type is a 25bbl batch of Double Joker IPA.

Expect to see it in appearing in keg and a limited bottle release in the Autumn.